Getting ahead in the search engines is a two-prong battle of gaining backlinks and optimizing your site for best indexing results. In order to gain backlinks, you need to write valuable content that readers are eager to share with others. Even then, you have no control over how many people actually do link to your site. Optimizing your blog on the other hand, you have as much control as you want. The first part of your blog to optimize are your Title and Meta tags, page title setup and site description.

Setting these items up is not very difficult, but they do require some thorough research before completing. You should be well aware of who your competitors are and have software capable of deciphering exactly what keyword phrases people use to get to products or services like yours. You should also have a keen understanding of how people use your products or services. By combining these tools, you will arm yourself with the most powerful handful of words and phrases that will drive free traffic to your site and save you untold amounts of money in acquiring new clients.

How do you set up your Title and Meta tags?

• Download and install the All-In-One SEO plugin for Wordpress and go to its Administration area
• Enter in the keywords you would like search engines to apply to your site in the Home Keywords section
• Enter in the title of your blog, exactly as you want it to appear in search engine results for your keywords, in the Home Title section

What should you name your pages?

• Best practices for a business blog with any intention of building their brand suggest naming your homepage “Your Business – Your Tag Line“. This will keep your company name and motto consistent in search engines and on your blog.
• Your individual posts will be named whatever title you gave them when you published them. Remember to fill your headlines with quality keywords.
• As for the rest of your pages, you can either continue the consistent theme, or have fun with them. I use descriptions I want to show up in search engines for each specific page for differentiation

How do you set up the site description?

• In the same area, type in the description you want to be found under your title in search engine results
• Fill your description with your top 5 or so keywords, but be sure it still reads well to the human eye
• Do a search on some established sites and blogs and compare their descriptions. Take note of the features they have in common

Your keywords are the ticket to search engine authority. Do your homework and optimize your blog for the keywords you find and stick with them. Allow your blog to soak up the attention these keywords gain over time as you publish more quality content that reflects them. Do this early tip right, build up content relevant to your site description and Meta and Title tags, and don’t change course for any reason and your blog will make up noticeable ground in the search engine marathon.